Ŕ periodica polytechnica
Architecture 41/2 (2010) 57–61 doi: 10.3311/pp.ar.2010-2.03 web: http://www.pp.bme.hu/ar c Periodica Polytechnica 2010
RESEARCH ARTICLE
The cost effectiveness of continuous maintenance for monuments and historic buildings
DávidKutasi/IstvánVidovszky
Received 2011-04-07
Abstract
For cultural and aesthetic reasons, it seems obvious, that sus- taining the high quality of historic buildings is a necessity. There are a number of organizations maintaining historic buildings by a monitoring system all over Europe, although there is no pub- lished data on the economic advantages of the practice.
The aim of our research is to show that besides the cultural and aesthetic arguments, there are sound economic reasons for continuous maintenance. Our study focuses on the costs by com- paring the case of regular maintenance, to that of isolated reno- vation that takes place every 15 or 20 years after a long period of negligence. In our pilot we have monitored six typical historic buildings to identify the economic facts alongside the aesthetic and cultural arguments, in order to clarify the importance of keeping our built heritage in good condition.
Keywords
historic buildings·continuous maintenance ·regular moni- toring·cost effectiveness
Acknowledgement
This work is connected to the scientific programme of the "De- velopment of quality-oriented and harmonized R+D+I strategy and functional model at BME" project. This project is supported by the New Hungary Development Plan (Project ID: TÁMOP- 4.2.1/B-09/1/KMR-2010-0002).
Dávid Kutasi
Department of Construction Technology and Management, BME, 1111 Bu- dapest M˝uegyetem rkp. 3., Hungary
István Vidovszky
Department of Construction Technology and Management, BME, 1111 Bu- dapest M˝uegyetem rkp. 3., Hungary
e-mail: vidist@gmail.com
Introduction
The maintenance of monuments and historic buildings is ob- viously very important in order to preserve the original fabric of our cultural heritage. This kind of behaviour is supported by most basic principals of many international cultural heritage or- ganizations. The idea of continuous maintenance (to keep our built environment in proper and sound condition on a day to day basis), has also been appearing in known literature for some while [1].
Known practice in most countries – some of those involved are those where monitoring services already exist – up to now has been questionable. For this reason a number of profession- als deal with the problem of preventive conservation, analyzing the key factors as to why owners do not take the necessary pre- cautions for their buildings [1]-[7], [10]. As a result, most of them agreed upon three key factors:
– the owners should be well informed on the technical details and the advantages of a continuous maintenance system – special support from the authorities and available national
grants for continuous maintenance is needed – well qualified professionals are required.
These factors practically indicate the main areas for the future work of maintenance services.
Cost effectiveness is an essential supporting factor to con- vince owners and leaders of the community of the benefits of the maintenance system.
Organizations in the field of continuous maintenance For a time now organizations for continuous monument mon- itoring have existed all over Europe providing services for own- ers of historic buildings, and making efforts to inform the public and the leaders of the communities on all the benefits of their systems. Some of them have been running for some time, with existing, properly operating systems, others are in an experimen- tal phase.
As the earliest organization of its kind, the Dutch Monu- mentenwacht was an example for most of the later proposals.
It was founded in 1973 as an independent, non-governmental organization for maintenance monitoring, providing a service for owners of historic buildings. After joining the organiza- tion, the properties of the members are inspected every year by a group of expert monument technicians. The owners have to pay an annual sum for membership and another fee on the oc- casions of the inspections depending on the required time. The smaller failures (e.g. missing tiles on the roof) are repaired on- site at the time of the inspections, for further works prequalified monument-specialist contractors are recommended depending on need. Each visit results in an actual report of the state of the building, including the potential failures and the recommen- dations for the necessary repairs with their priorities [8, 10].
Being member of the Monumentenwacht organization is in many cases the precondition for making a bid for repair grants.
Here owners can receive about 50% of the total sum of the restoration costs. Restoration works can be executed only by contractors accredited by the organization. After the restoration the Monumentenwacht checks the completed work and presents a report of adequacy [10].
In the Netherlands during the years of the operation of Mon- umentenwacht, owners’ attitudes have continuously changed in a positive direction, and the grant system of the state and the local authorities have adopted the policy of continuous mainte- nance [8, 9]. For instance in the territory of Friesland, the local authority provides a particular level of subsidy for the Monu- mentenwacht for completing a clearly defined number of inspec- tions, and only the further costs are financed from the subscrip- tions of the owners [10].
Utilizing the positive and negative experiences from the Netherlands, Monumentenwacht Vlaanderen in Belgium was established in 1991. The investigated buildings of this region are private, ecclesiastical or in state possession. As a conse- quence of the well-organized marketing, the proportion of the investigated private properties has doubled in the last few years.
Although the number of members increases constantly, the num- ber of regularly maintained properties hardly reaches a third of the historic buildings, because the grant system in Belgium still preferably supports occasional restoration projects rather than maintenance. Belgian state leaders are considering amending this to a system favouring maintenance.
In the historic English town of Bath in 2002 and 2003, a pilot project of systematic maintenance was carried as a co-effort of
“Maintain Our Heritage”, the University of West England and the Bath Preservation Trust. During this period they studied the operation of a temporary organization. Some 72 historic build- ings were inspected in order to answer several important ques- tions: inspection methods, competences, economic facts, oppor- tunities for marketing, and the attitude of the owners.
Most of the interviewed owners were interested in the ser- vice and some of them believed that such a maintenance practice could be economically beneficial and attractive, especially if it was accompanied with governmental support e.g. tax reduction
or a grant system for maintenance programmes.
Despite the success of the pilot itself, the executors of the programme faced some technical and financial difficulties. The pilot project was financed by English Heritage and some private foundations. Without the financial support of these organiza- tions the maintenance service would not have been operable, but according to some results it has been assumed that in the case of a larger number of investigated buildings, the establishment of a self-supporting system could be possible. This also seems to be supported by the Danish Bygningsbevaring. This organization operates similarly to the Dutch one [15], but – in contrast with other foundations – it works without external support, collecting the total income exclusively from owners’ fees [2].
In Germany the BAUDID (Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft unab- hängiger Denkmal- und Altbauinspektionsdienste in Deutsch- land) works as a federation for all the organizations in the field of monument preservation and maintenance [12]. In some Ger- man states there are organisations following the Dutch model, like the Monumentdienst in Lower Saxony [13], or the Monu- ment Watch Brandenburg and Berlin [15].
The “Maintainer Network of Hungarian Monument and Building Foundation” (MAMEG) was established in 2006 as the first maintenance service in the Central European region. The pattern was the Dutch Monumentenwacht [9].
The aim of our research
The different publications of the organizations in most cases emphasize that continuous maintenance is financially more ad- vantageous than the occasional restoration after years of negli- gence. Studying the sources, we found no data supporting this statement. Our research intends to provide evidence for this, comparing cases of maintained buildings to neglected ones. In this pilot the conditions for a larger scale research project have been tested.
Sampling and experimental techniques Sampling
For the sampling of this pilot, six buildings were selected: a treadmill, a cottage, two villas, a traditional apartment-house, and a church, as typical historic buildings of different sizes with more or less different functions. Each building was in poor con- dition after years of negligence. According to their inhabitants or the owners, none of them have received any restoration work in the last 15 years. In each case visual diagnostics were applied and the present state was recorded (Table 1).
As a reference another sample of a medium sized public building was taken, where continuous annual maintenance has occurred over the last eight years. Table 2 shows annually the maintenance activities of the building.
Method of calculation
Based on the records of the buildings, a restoration plan was created for each one. Using the Calculation Handbook for
Tab. 1. The state reports of the different buildings
Damaged / deteriorated structures Building type
treadmill cottage smaller villa
church larger villa
apartment house
building installation systems x x x x x
chimney wall x
clay lining on the slab x
concrete sidewalks x x x
electrical systems x x x x x x
flashing on the top of the attics x
flashings at the windowsills x
flashings on the roof x x
floor carpet x
floor tiling on the balconies/terraces x x x
floor tiling on the side corridors of the yard x
footing x x x
interior wall and floor tiling x x x x
iron column x
metal hatch x
painting of interior timber doors x x x
painting of the facade x x
painting of the window frames x x x x x x
painting of the wooden parts of the gables and eaves x x x x x
painting of wooden porticus x
painting of wrought iron structures x
parquet x x
paving (in the garden/in the yard) x x
plaster on the chimney x
plaster on the facade - cracking x x x x
plasters on cellar walls x x
plasters on interior walls x x x x x x
rainwater goods x x x
roofing x x x
timber doors x x
timber roof structure (rafters) x x x
timber slab x
wall carpet x x
water insulation of the terraces/balconies x x x x
window glass x x x x x x
wrought iron railings x
Construction provided by the Hungarian Chamber of Architects (Épít˝oipari Költségvetési Segédlet) [16], we carried out a calcu- lation for the restoration in every case. In each case the damage was recorded, a necessary restoration activity was suggested and the volume of the necessary work was calculated with the appro- priate cost of the activity. Table 3 shows the data of the treadmill as an example.
The “fictive” costs of the same buildings were then calculated on the basis of the realized maintenance activities of the refer- ence building, simulating a case of continuous maintenance.
Finally, the average annual costs were calculated for each building, both in cases of long periods of negligence and in case of continuous maintenance. Table 4 shows the comparison of these average annual costs.
Remarks: It has to be mentioned here, that the financial cost- ings obviously depend on the time point. In order to reach com- parable figures, the Net Present Value should have been used.
Since only the immediate renovation costs were available for our pilot project, we calculated the occasional 15 year renova- tion costs on the actual (2010) price. On the other hand the an- nual renovation costs were also calculated based on 2010 value.
Since the inflation values of the particular renovation activities are not accessible, it is a reasonable estimation to assume that devaluation (financial) is almost equal to the inflation of con- struction work costs. In this way the total annual renovation costs are comparable with the calculated costs of isolated reno- vations.
Tab. 2. The annually maintenance activities of the reference building over the last 8 years
Maintenance work Year
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
controlling and maintaining building installation systems (venti- lation, chimney, heating, warm water supply)
x x x x x x x x
controlling and maintaining the electrical systems x x x x x x x x
regular interior wall repainting x x x x x x
exterior wall painting x
maintaining the installations of the building x x x x x x x x
cleaning gutters and downpipes x x x x x x x x
cleaning windows in special height x x x x x x x x
maintaining the plants around the building x x x x x x x x
lubrication of locks and hinges x x x x x x x x
repairing walking surfaces in the garden x
glazing (broken windows) x
installation bird wire meshes of the facades x
repair of the footing x
repair of the roof covering x
Tab. 3. Calculation of renovation costs in case of the treadmill
Recorded damage Necessary restoration action Volume Unit Cost
norm (HUF/unit) (2010)
Cost (HUF)
Vertical cracking on the facade. Lime mortar plastering on the whole facade. 35 m2 5000 175 000
Wooden slab structure is damaged. Repair of the slab structure. 28,8 m2 10300 296 640
The clay lining on the slab is incomplete. Preparation of clay lining on the slab. 0,2 m3 40000 8 000 The roofing is damaged and incomplete. New roof-
ing is necessary.
Reed roofing. 105 m2 3600 378 000
Painting of the wooden parts of the gables and eaves are worn and stained.
Repainting of the planks on the gables and eaves.
30 m2 800 24 000
The painting of the window frames and exterior doors are worn and partially missing.
Repainting of exterior wooden doors and win- dows.
2,88 m2 1700 4 896
Some of the glasses are broken. Glazing of the doors and windows. 0,5 m2 5800 2 900
The painting of interior wooden doors is worn. Repainting of interior wooden doors. 5,4 m2 1700 9 180 Interior plasters are damaged. Lime mortar plastering on the partition walls. 5 m2 2600 13 000
Brick paving is worn and damaged. Remove of the existing paving. 20 m2 900 18 000
Construction of brick paving. 20 m2 10000 200 000
Interior walls are stained. Lime wash on the interior surfaces. 35 m2 700 24 500
Concrete sidewalks are damaged. Construction of concrete sidewalks. 6 m2 6000 36 000
The painting of the iron garden gate is worn. Repainting of iron garden gate. 12 m2 800 9 600
Electrical system is worn. Total change of the electrical system 20 m2 9120 182 400
Total 1 382 116
Tab. 4. Comparison of costs in case of occasionally performed renovation and continuous maintenance
Building type Annualized cost of the restoration after 15 years of negligence
Annual average costs in case of regular maintenance
Savings in HUF Savings in percentage
treadmill 92 141 50 333 41 808 45%
cottage 648 674 367 667 281 007 43%
smaller villa 692 522 576 000 116 522 16%
church 309 138 198 667 110 471 36%
larger villa 1 263 996 230 666 1 033 330 82%
apartment house 702 724 115 333 587 391 84%
Results
Analysing the comparison of costs in Table 4, we can state that in no cases were the costs higher with continuous main- tenance versus the case of the restoration costs after years of negligence. According to this pilot it seems very likely that con- tinuous maintenance results in lower costs compared to the costs of occasional executed restorations.
The aim of our pilot project was to assess whether regular maintenance in contrast with isolated renovation could lead to economic benefits. It appears from the data, in each of the ob- served cases that regular maintenance is the economically better option.
Although as a consequence of the low number of samples the result is not statistically significant, all the six observed build- ings positively support our initial hypothesis. Overall, the suc- cess of this provisional study encourages us to continue the re- search on larger scale.
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